Hope in Dirt City

The Edmonton MC has served as the official poet laureate of his hometown, so it's surprising the strength of his third album doesn't lie in his writing or his rapping.

The rapper Cadence Weapon, onetime Pitchfork contributor Rollie Pemberton, was the official poet laureate of his hometown of Edmonton, so it's a surprise that the strength of his third album, Hope in Dirt City, doesn't lie in his writing or his rapping. It's an album from an artist who has improved the overall direction of his music, but who still has room to grow as an MC. Hope in Dirt City is not a great album-- and there are more than a few moments that make me wince-- but as much I want to dismiss it, I'm left with the sense that Pemberton is working toward something, and that he's fearless enough to one day achieve it. The album itself is no endgame, but transitions have gone far worse.

For Hope in Dirt City, Pemberton has thankfully ditched the flimsy, starter-kit electro of 2008's Afterparty Babies. Instead we get warm, live instrumentation and tasteful, fruitful dips into 2-tone ("Small Deaths"), the synths of deep-house ("There We Go"), the pink-hued funk of ViceCity ("Hope in Dirt City"), and a palate-cleansing Madvillainy homage ("Cheval"). The beats here are often jazzy, and even when that jazziness turns into outright skronk on a song like "Jukebox", the production rewards immersion. Despite the slight genre experiments, there's a looseness to the playing that holds everything together.

As impressive and encouraging as the production is, Pemberton's rapping isn't up to snuff. He's still overly dry and often noticeably amateurish, and he sometimes pushes himself to do things he can't. On opener "Get on Down", for instance, he kicks off the chorus by awkwardly spelling out his name and then continues to trip all over himself during the second verse as he tries to speed up his flow. Other times, like on "There We Go" or "Hope in Dirt City", he'll fall into a flow that's much closer to talking than rapping. There are also a few choruses that show off how unpolished he can be as a writer, be it when he devolves into screaming ("Jukebox") or when he introduces a melody that clashes with the rest of the song (the title track, "No More Names [Aditi]"). Likewise, his writing doesn't offer much to grab onto: The album focuses mostly on boys chasing girls, but his critical eye fails to do much to illuminate either his life or the listener's.

Pemberton is a rap outsider, and one of the positive things to take away from Hope in Dirt City is that this may have given him the license and the freedom to let the listener watch him figure himself out. Not all of his targets are hit, but there are moments here where you can squint and see something that could be built upon. The notable example is the single "Conditioning", which in its second half features the best honest-to-goodness singing on the album. Pemberton's vocals are impassioned, but he also perfectly harnesses the range of his voice, lilting at the end of a few lines into a falsetto while growling as he delivers others. He hits that same sweet spot in the album's final minute as well, allowing the record to at least close with its best foot forward. Rapping becomes singing becomes screaming with a fluid sonic identity to match, and though there are some misses, the process itself provides its own fleeting charms.